Imagine being given the opportunity to finally show off what you have been putting hard work into since you were a little kid. Imagine the nerves rushing through you. You have one shot to prove yourself. Only a few minutes to show off what you have been training for for years. Will you let the pressure get the best of you?

After a long, hard season of gymnastics, freshmen Hannah Phelan and Kaitlin Porter were given this opportunity. They continued on as qualifiers for the State individuals meet on February 16th. This meet was where gymnasts compete as individuals, rather than as a team, like the regular season meets. Rather than focusing on scoring a certain amount of points with the goal of a team victory, the gymnasts focused on sticking their hardest skills in order to achieve the highest possible individual score. Kaitlin Porter competed on bars, while Hannah Phelan competed all around (vault, bars, beam,floor). Hannah scored some of the highest scores in her high school gymnastics career and subsequently became the State Champion on beam.

There were multiple sessions at the individuals meet. Kaitlin competed at the first meet of the day because she qualified for bars. Sadly, Kaitlin did not perform to the best of her ability. Although Kaitlin is more than capable of scoring in the 9’s with her bar routine, she only scored a 7.5 at this meet. She fell on a skill, called a pak (a skill that she has been working on for a while), lost form a couple of times, and received a lower score because the high difficulty bar routine did not pay off.  Although the risk of performing difficult skills hurt her performance, she gained the experience which should help her in future years.